Where we challenge what you won't say or you don't know…yet

Archive for March, 2014

Jim Rohn told us and since then we have heard many times that we are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. We are told to choose wisely as we select the people we allow into our inner circle. We hear from experts and leaders that the more we interact with successful people the more successful we will be.

That’s great advice. Thank you to all that give us this information. Here is the challenge…who are the 5 people we should be selecting? Do we get to just choose these people and all of a sudden they are in our world and impacting who we become?

If that was the case some very popular and successful people would have a lot of inner circles to be a part of and wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of them selecting their 5 people?

Maybe we can set this up like a sports draft and take turns selecting people until they are taken. Wonder who your first round draft pick would be and who you think would still be waiting in the 5th round of the draft.

Instead of worrying about who the actual people are why don’t we take a look at the role each of these people should fill in your life and then you can fill in the right person.

We want to get even more specific as we take these suggestions and build upon it.

Lets take a look at who we believe the 5 people you spend the most time with should be to improve everything about your life.

Just because you want someone to be one of your 5 it doesn’t happen overnight.

You might need to get an introduction to them.

You might need to start spending more time where they spend their time.

You might need to read more of their writings (that is spending time with them) or watching more of their movies, shows, or performances. *Please remember that choosing to spend more time with Harry Potter by watching his movies and reading his books will not help you develop magical powers, it will just help you become someone that doesn’t live in reality.

As you select the 5 you want to have in your inner circle keep this in mind.

Are they fit? Then fitness is most likely in your future.

Are they lazy and sit around? Then you will find yourself on your sofa a lot more.

Are they debt free? Then you will find yourself clearing up any debts before you know it.

These people that you spend the most time with each have a role to fill in your life. You might find that one person can fill two or three of these roles. Nothing wrong with that as long as you are choosing good people. These people will switch in your life as you grow, develop and change. While you don’t want to lose who you become, you might want to take that next step forward which means new people in some of these roles. You can always continue relationships with these people, just at a different level.

We are not saying that you can only spend time with these 5 people as that would get repetitive after a short time. We all need the input of outsiders, engagement with new people and new stories to share. Even on Gilligan’s Island it seemed visitors came by so the episodes didn’t get stale with the same 7 people. Amazingly the guests always got rescued while the original 7 remained stranded. – sorry for the tangent there.

Who do we believe the 5 people you spend the most time with should be?

Partner

Mentor

Protege

Best Friend

Peer

Let’s take a look at these 5 people in more detail.

1) Your Partner
This is your life partner, whatever that means to you. This could be your spouse, your roommate that you have kept around. In the business world this could be your business partner.
This is the person that is there for you day in and day out. This person has seen you at your best and celebrated, while also seeing you at your worst and still wanting to be there. This person can fill many of the roles mentioned by Jenn above, such as the shoulder, the cheerleader, and even the teacher and drill sergeant.
Choose this person very carefully and strategically. Again we can’t all choose the same person and just say we want to be married to them, otherwise Vin Diesel and Scarlett Johansson might by very busy.
Choose someone that you want to share everything with forever and that you know will grow with you as you both grow in all aspects of your life.

2) A Mentor
Ask the top people in any area from business to atheltics to personal character and they will all tell you that they have a mentor or a coach in their life. We believe that this person should be more of a mentor than a coach. The difference? According to the Center for Coaching and Mentoring, mentoring is a power free, two-way mutually beneficial learning situation where the mentor provides advice, shares knowledge and experiences, and teaches using a low pressure, self-discovery approach. Also freely sharing their own experiences and skills. The mentor is both a source of information/knowledge and a Socratic questioner.
A mentor is someone that is one, two or maybe more steps ahead of you on the path you are choosing.

Your mentor could be someone from work that is doing now what you want to be doing in a year.

Your mentor could be that person you know that has the perfect relationship with their spouse or their children.

Your mentor could be that person that knows how the computer systems work that you are attmepting to understand.

Find that person, examine everything about that person, you don’t want a mentor at work that is a workaholic and has no relationship with his family if a family life is important to you. Then ask this person if they are willing to mentor you and help you continue to grow. If they think they don’t have the time or the energy just show them this blog and person #3 that we should all have in our inner circle.
Looking for a little more help in how to find the best mentor for you? Check out this blog post by Under30CEO about the 13 Important Qualities to Look for in a Potential Mentor.

3) A Protege
Most successful people are teaching others how to be successful as well. Nobody succeeds on their own and success leaves clues.

Veteran athletes take the rookie under their wing and teach them the ins and outs of life in the sport.

Business leaders know that at some point they will pass the business on to someone else to keep it going.

Parents pass on their stories, their successes and the lessons from their failures to their proteges, also know as their children.

Look around you and find that someone that you know wants to get where you are in life or in business and take them under your wing.
The energy you will get from their passion will increase the passion you possess, and bring you new solutions to challenges.
As John Maxwell, a man that has many proteges says, he who thinks he leads , but has no followers, is only taking a walk.

4) A Best Friend
This person can be your mentor, your protege and if you are lucky and chose wisely this person could be your partner. Maybe you inherited this person as a sibling or a parent or a child that you have a wonderful realtionship with. If you have this person as someone else on your list you can combine these. Just because this isn’t your spouse that doesn’t mean you did something wrong, some people had the best friend first and have kept them forever.
The main task of this person in your life is to be the person that tells you yes when you ask do I look fat in this outfit. A best friend plays the role of shoulder to cry on when needed, kick in the pants when needed and the person that is always there to celebrate with you.

5) A Peer
This is a pretty open ended sounding person to choose to have in your circle of 5 and yet this could be the one that makes all the difference in the world. Most of us spend more than half of our day awake with our peers. Who you choose to spend that time with when away from the other 4 people on your list matters and it matters a lot.

Who are you sharing books with?

Who are you sharing ideas with?

Who are you having lunch with at work? Are they heading to the fast food place or are they bringing a healthy choice to have for lunch.

Who brings that competitive gene out in you making you want to push a little more and be a little better?

Choosing the best choice for a peer partner to fill this spot could say more about you than any of the other people that you choose so make sure you spend your time with the right people.

Now that you know who we believe the 5 people you spend the most time with should be, do you know who these people are in your life already or do you think you need to make some changes?

Nothing is stopping you from growing into the person that you want to become. Just choose the 5 people that you spend the most time with and choose wisely!

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Chadalyst – Take a look at who you are spending the most time with over the next month and see who you are the average of.

As the flowers and trees begin to bloom, we start to think about spring cleaning. Don’t limit that to tossing the clothes you haven’t worn for a year. Expand your thinking and get ready to spring clean your business and your life.

One of the biggest challenges with the purge that comes as we clear out drawers and cabinets is figuring where to start. The same challenge can be present in your life and in your business. You think that everything is going great and don’t always take the moment to clean where the deep cleaning is really needed.

You do not need to limit your cleaning to spring time or to just the old items in your home that should be donated or thrown away (nobody wants your old socks with holes in them.)

A successful cleaning can, and should, include your business focus and probably some parts of your life.

We have all heard the story of how when Steve Jobs returned to Apple they had too many different products and he had most of them scrapped and had the company refocus on what would make a difference. The rest of the story is history as the odds are high you, or the person next to you, is reading this on an Apple product.

What about the story of your friend that decided to cut out soda and lost weight quickly?

There are many examples of people who changed the people they surrounded themselves with and watched their whole world change for the better.

Forget all of the stories and examples and let’s focus on you and what you should and could be doing to make the most of this cleaning.

New Year’s resolutions find us making commitments to things that we never did before and think we will magically start doing now. Spring cleaning is where we get to toss away the things that just don’t belong anymore.

Let’s start with our business.

Where should you start?

What are you doing each day that you shouldn’t be?

Are you doing paperwork that is not your strength?

Are you focused on too many different projects?

Are you spreading yourself too thin and using too many different forms of lead generation for your business?

Take a moment and think about all of the things that you could just stop doing or have someone else do. Think about the success you could have if you only worked on one project or only used two main sources of lead generation.

“To be everywhere, is to be nowhere.” – Seneca

By running around in a circle we don’t accomplish anything other than getting dizzy. Choose a path and follow that path. Focus on the things that bring you a return and don’t worry about all of the other things your competitors are doing. Let them waste their energy.

Alexander Graham Bell said it like this. “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”

Now let’s look at our life.

What are you doing each day that you could clean out of your life?

Are you spending time with people who you know you shouldn’t be?

Are you eating and drinking too much of the things you should cut out?

Are you filling your mind with negative thoughts from too much news, internet, victim friends?

Take a moment and figure which of these, or what other things, it is that you could remove from your life at least in small doses as you work on your ongoing cleaning.

Remember as you prune the weak buds and branches off of a rose-bush, the other roses will grow stronger and larger. The same can be said for you if you take a moment to spring clean your business and your life.

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Chadalyst – Write down the three things you will clean out of your life. One for your business, one for your personal life, and one for your drawers and cabinets as they need to be cleaned out as well still.